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ninety-three: the photobook and t-shirts

ninety-three

Photo book featuring all 93 photographs from the final

series, many of which have not been seen before.

Deluxe Version (11x13")

Regular Version

Coupon codes (thru 12/16):
 BLURBGIFT-1  (20% off any purchase)
BLURBGIFT-2  (25% off $150+)


Electronic version

Standard ePub format.
Viewable in iBooks on Apple devices.

ninety-three: t-shirts and stickers

A series of ninety-three logos based on current and

historic highway signs from the state of Nebraska

that can be purchased on t-shirts and as stickers.

t-shirts available here

Please note that the shirts can be ordered in a variety

of colors and in children's sizes as well.

stickers available here

Buy six stickers or more and they are half price.

Current RedBubble coupon code: HITHERE10

10% off through 12/31/13

Oglala National Grassland

Untitled (2013)

I spent a few days last week exploring the far northwest corner of Nebraska's panhandle, an area known as the Oglala National Grassland. The Grassland occupies near 100,000 acres of native short grass prairie and unique rock formations that many do not associate with the landscape of Nebraska. To me, it symbolizes the beginnings of the west, where the great plains begin to dissolve into the mountains and landscape of Wyoming and the Rockies.

My first visit to Oglala came during the initial travels for ninety-three during the summer of 2007. It's such a foreign place to someone who has grown up surrounded by the expanses of green farm fields and rolling hills. Nebraska's grasslands appear to stretch on forever, almost completely void of trees, and are filled with little more than the sound of millions of short grasses moving in the wind. It's an unmistakable sound that has stuck with me ever since. There is also a sense of isolation that is both invigorating and a bit unsettling. I cannot even imagine how it felt to explore and live in this area before there were roads or towns of any kind on the prairie. It's no wonder that this land was sacred to Native American tribes like the Oglala Lakota of Chief Crazy Horse, who was killed at Fort Robinson in 1877.

Sioux County, Nebraska (2007)

It took a few years, but I did finally make it back. I've started a small project called Oglala that will document the area in and around the Grassland, including Crawford and Fort Robinson State Park. My experience last week was fantastic and I can't wait to share more of it with everyone.  

A July update

near Burchard, Nebraska 

Site of Old Plymouth, Nebraska 

Rosalie, Nebraska (Detail)

Despite my extensive travels throughout the state of Nebraska, there are still a few places I have yet to visit. I've spent a few days this month working on remedying that fact, at least the towns that are close enough for a day trip. The photographs above are from these treks.

It appears that July has lessened its grip on us all a little earlier this year than usual after only two weeks or so of unrelenting heat. I'm looking forward to picking back up on the Platte River project soon with a few new ideas as to how to approach it. Hopefully I'll have some positive results to show in the coming weeks along with more from Fontenelle.

Summer at Fontenelle

My time spent walking through Fontenelle Forest has reached its fourth and final season. The woods are entirely different in the summer, full of buzzing life and weedy greenery. It's a shame that the humidity around here is enough to kill a person off after just a mile or two of the hilly terrain that defines much of Fontenelle. Despite my many visits to the forest, there are still a few trail sections that I have yet to see. I find myself revisiting many of the same places repeatedly, my favorites.

The project is coming along nicely. While I'm not sure when and how it will be exhibited, I look forward to showing the images off at some point. It's been a great change of pace for me.

Along the border and all the way home

Antler, North Dakota

Above is a photograph of the very small town of Antler, North Dakota. The town is less than two miles from the Canadian border and once was home to a customs house. These days, there is less than thirty people living here, leaving what amounts to a ghost town huddled around the abandoned customs house in a circle. It's a bit eerie.

I've been home a few days, but I wanted to leave a quick blog entry that's as much for my own memory as for anyone following along. I left Minot on Sunday headed north, then made my way along the border, through the Green Mountains, and then south through Devils Lake to Fargo. On Monday, I took a short trip into far western Minnesota on U.S. Highway 75 before battling high winds all the way home down Interstate 29.

Also visited:  Minot, Ruthville, Antler, Westhope, Roth, Souris, Carbury, Strawberry Lake, Dunseith, Belcourt, Rolla, Rocklake, Clyde, Munich, Starkweather, Garske, Webster, Devils Lake, Hamar, McHenry, Glenfield, Courtenay, Wimbledon, Leal and Rogers, North Dakota. Moorhead, Comstock, Wolverton, Kent, Breckenridge, Doran, Wheaton, Dumont, Graceville, Barry, Beardsley and Browns Valley, Minnesota. Sisseton, South Dakota.

Boom or bust

New Town, North Dakota

Some thoughts on a day where I drove far further west in North Dakota than I originally intended to...

- North Dakota is going through what has been described as an oil boom. It's hard to comprehend the magnitude of this boom without witnessing it first hand. Highways in the middle of nowhere are chock full of semi-truck after semi-truck, all covered in red-brown dust. In fact, everything is covered in red-brown dust. There are oil and natural gas rigs all over the landscape being watched by men wearing hard hats that drive large pick-up trucks with license plates from all over the country. In New Town (aptly named after everyone was forced to move when Lake Sakakawea filled with water in the 1950's), the two-lane highways are so congested with traffic that a semi waiting to turn left at a temporary stop light can back traffic up from one side of the town to the other.

- Bugs. Bugs. And bugs. At times, it sounded as if I was driving through a steady rain. It was actually the thud of thousands of little flying insects slamming into the windshield. After a while, using windshield wiper fluid does little more than just smear them. You know it's bad when you can visually see black clouds of insects heading towards you on the highway.

- If you like wide open skies, then North Dakota will not disappoint. I did not make it far enough west to see  much of the badlands that cover the state, but the small bit I did see was quite great. I look forward to making it back again to see Theodore Roosevelt National Park someday.


Also visited: Bismarck, Harmon, Center, Stanton, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Hazen, Beulah, Zap, Golden Valley, Dodge, Halliday, Dunn Center, Killdeer, Mandaree, Keene, Crow Flies High Butte Historic Site, Parshall, Plaza and Ryder, North Dakota.

Sitting Bull and Sakakawea

Sakakawea Monument near Mobridge, South Dakota

The monuments for Sakakawea and Sitting Bull stand on a bluff overlooking the upper reaches of Lake Oahe and the town of Mobridge across the water. As I arrived, a storm hovered overhead and threatened rain, the swirling sky providing the perfect background for this place. This land was once the home of many tribes of Native Americans, including Sitting Bull's Lakota Sioux. Now it is fenced off with barbed wire that divides the land into large ranches and warns against trespassing.

I find the so-called reservations, in this case the home of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, to be among the most depressing places to visit in this country. No matter how majestic the land, no matter how proud the history of the people, the reservation reduces it to a sad narrative of how badly they were mistreated and how little can be done to resurrect this greatness. The poorest towns I have ever seen have been in reservations, towns full of junk cars and broken windows, towns that somehow seem temporary even after decades of existence.

It just makes me want to cry.


Also visited: Aberdeen, Richmond, Ipswich, Roscoe, Bowdle, Java, Selby, Glenham, Wakpala and Kenel, South Dakota. Fort Yates, Cannon Ball and Mandan, North Dakota.

Omaha to Aberdeen

Redfield, South Dakota

There's a short break before summer classes start up, so I've decided to hit the road for a few days. It wasn't until just yesterday that I finally made the decision to head towards North Dakota for the first time since stopping in Fargo back in 2008. I am looking forward to just wandering with very little specific planning into my travels. The goal is to see a bit of the Great Plains of both South and North Dakota, and to visit places that no one ever really thinks to go.

Day one was a direct (for me) drive to Aberdeen in north-central South Dakota. The weather was just as windy as it was a year ago. And the while the clouds were spectacular for most of the day, the sun chose to hide behind them nearly the entire time. Some days the light cooperates.. other days it does not.

The photograph above shows the remains of a small drive-in theater along U.S. Highway 281 just north of Redfield, South Dakota.


Also visited: Dell Rapids, Trent, Egan, Colman, Wentworth, Madison, Sinai, Arlington, Lake Preston, De Smet, Iroquois, Cavour, Huron, Wolsey, Bonilla, Hitchcock and Tulare, South Dakota.

The sasquatch no longer has any pizza

Butler County (Rising City) (2007)

Rising City (2013)

It is with sadness that I bid adieu to the subject of one of my favorite photographs from ninety-three, the infamous Sasquatch Pizza sign that adorned a convenience store along Nebraska Highway 92 in Rising City.

The first photograph was taken in July of 2007 as I passed through on my way home on one of the first few treks I made to discover Nebraska. At the ninety-three show at Hot Shops, this was the image that got the most comments and smiles. I must have told at least a dozen people where it was located.

Unfortunately, since I last passed through Rising City in 2010, the little store had a change of ownership and became "Fergy's Cafe" which has now gone out of business. Poor ol' Sasquatch Pizza was defaced horribly at some point and now is just barely visible. The edges of his face are still there under the ugly black spray paint, sort of haunting and sad, with that goofy smile somehow still there in spirit.

I'm reminded of the work of one of my favorite photographers, William Christenberry, and his ambition to photograph some of Alabama's vernacular architecture over the course of many decades. If his photographs are any indication, this building will still somehow have several more lives over the next twenty or thirty years.

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A word of advice from someone who should know better. If you buy a new (or used) camera, run it through its paces before you rely on it for anything that is time consuming or that will be difficult (or impossible) to shoot again.

I picked up a refurbished Nikon D600 as a backup body and this little trek I made Friday was my first time out with the camera. Unfortunately, it has a problem stopping down lenses and consistently overexposed images by a stop or two (or three) and left me with much less depth of field than I expected. So it goes back.

Live and learn, folks. Even expensive cameras can be lemons.

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Also visited on Friday: Hooper, Scribner, Snyder, Dodge, Olean, Howells, Clarkson, Leigh, Creston, St. Bernard, Cornlea, Humphrey, Platte Center, Columbus, Shelby, Garrison, David City, Brainard and Weston, Nebraska.

May is finally here...

May started out with sub-freezing temperatures and a heavy, wet snowfall. At least it appears to have finally straightened out. I've been working through it, continuing to photograph the Loess Hills region of Iowa and Fontenelle Forest, and reworking my South Omaha series.

Here are three images from the past few weeks...

from Fontenelle

from The Magic City

Council Bluffs, Iowa

The train touched down in Sioux City, Iowa

Sioux City, Iowa

My exploration of the Loess Hills region of Western Iowa continued Saturday as I explored its northern-most reaches. Much of my time was spent in Sioux City, a place I called home for four years growing up. It's always a bit strange to return to childhood haunts. Sioux City hasn't changed. A building or two is gone (most notably the Catholic grade school I attended with the hideous giant, orange doors) but the past twenty years have not done much to change the place. It's still a little run down and largely depressing to me, like running into a friend from years ago who hasn't changed a bit and appears to languish in a state of perpetual sameness.

That said, Sioux City makes for some pretty damn good photographs.


Also visited: Sloan, Hornick, Holly Springs, Climbing Hill, Bronson, Five Ridge Prairie, Westfield, Akron, Salix, Snyder Bend and Lewis and Clark State Park.

RESTAURANT, rest in peace

As I passed the Honey Creek exit on I-29 this afternoon, I quickly realized that something was missing that I've enjoyed for as long as I can remember. The giant red-roofed RESTAURANT, unoccupied for most of the last decade, has been torn down. 

I imagine the Missouri River flood two years ago didn't do the building any favors. It also doesn't help that exit 66 is an exit to pretty much nowhere not too far away from all the services and restaurants that the Omaha / Council Bluffs area provides. If a person actually wanted to go to Honey Creek, they'd be hard pressed to find it from this exit. There's a few miles of gravel in between and the town can barely even be considered a bump in the road.

Still, I'll miss seeing RESTAURANT when I pass by. Time marches on and so it goes.

RESTAURANT, May of 2009 

RESTAURANT, March of 2013

I spent the afternoon wandering around the central portion of Iowa's Loess Hills. It was the first great spring day we've had this year and I just couldn't resist. Today was a day of bearded old guys stopping me to say hello as I walked around. Three of 'em, all together. Us beards stick together.

Also visited: Modale, Mondamin, Murray Hill, Preparation Canyon, Moorhead, Turin, Castana, Hornick, Sloan and Whiting.

Ozark-bound

I spent a few days last week exploring central Missouri, mostly around the Lake of the Ozarks. It's been twenty years since my last visit and a lot has changed, but there's still some of the old tourist trap quirks to be found if a person looks hard enough. The same goes for my time spent along the old Route 66 around Lebanon, Missouri.

Now I'm back to Nebraska and ready for spring. Surprisingly, there was more snow in Missouri than there was in Omaha when I left. That is until Sunday when a freak 6-8" snowstorm rolled through completely unannounced.

Just a few more weeks.

St. Joseph, Missouri 

 Lupus, Missouri

Lebanon, Missouri

Also visited, Day 1: Atchison and Leavenworth, Kansas. St. Joseph, Rushville, Platte City, Peculiar, Creighton and Urich Missouri.

Also visited, Day 2: Clinton, Tightwad, Warsaw, Climax Springs, Lebanon, Waynesville, Mark Twain National Forest, Roby and Lynchburg, Missouri.

Also visited, Day 3: Camdenton, Ha Ha Tonka State Park, Osage Beach, Lake Ozark, Eldon, Rocky Mountain, Olean, High Point, California, Jamestown, Sandy Hook, Marion, Marion Bottoms Conservation Area, Lupus, Wooldridge, Overton, Overton Bottoms Conservation Area, Huntsdale and McBaine, Missouri.

Also visited, Day 4: Rocheport, New Franklin, Boonesboro, Lisbon, Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge, Glasgow, Gilliam, Slater, Miami, De Witt, Cary, Carrolton, Norborne, Hardin, Richmond, Polo, Lathrop and Plattsburg, Missouri.

February (Thus far...)

February has, to this point, been about rediscovering black and white photography. I'd add 35mm film to that, but I've been shooting with a small Olympus digital camera, the E-M5. It's really quite a fantastic little package with tremendous image quality, even with the pocket-sized 14-42mm kit lens. 

The last time I gave camera suggestions, I was unable to recommend any of the micro 4/3 cameras. Now I can highly recommend any of the latest Olympus models (the aforementioned E-M5 along with the E-PL5 and E-PM2) to anyone who is looking to take high quality photographs with the smallest package possible. Olympus' latest imaging sensor has finally caught up with the DSLR world.

You can't expect miracles, obviously, but I'd say the results are better than what I got with the old full frame Canon 5D. There's definitely a difference in outright image quality between so-called full frame and cropped frame cameras, especially when it comes to fine detail and depth. Just think of a camera with a 4/3 or APS-C sensor as the new 35mm and a full frame camera like the Nikon D800 to be the new medium format. Both have their own advantages and can deliver results that are exhibition worthy. Bigger will mean better in most ways.. but also much more expensive.

Here are a few photographs from the first half of February for your viewing pleasure: 

Places visited: Council Bluffs, Missouri Valley, Logan, Woodbine, Dunlap, Dow City, Arion, Earling, Tennant, Shelby and Minden, Iowa. Washington, Kennard, Arlington, Fremont, Ames, North Bend, Morse Bluff, Cedar Hill, Abie and Plasi, Nebraska.

The State of the Artist: 2013

 01/01/13 #9 (Burt County)

As yet another begins, I feel ever more confident about the direction I've been moving as a photographer. While much work remains, especially in regards to the exhibition of my photography, I have reached a level of competency in my image-making that surprises me on a regular basis. I remember spending hours circling large pieces of Nebraska searching for a single photograph during my travels for ninety-three, struggling to come up with anything that would work. Now I find myself working in small areas with far more success and feel increasingly connected with the environment that surrounds me.

2012 was an important year in my life, both personal and artistic. In my personal life, I found love and a sense of contentment that has brought new meaning to my day-to-day existence. This inspiration and stability will guide my work moving forward and give me the courage to take more chances rather than continue to drift through time without embracing it.

from Fontenelle

Artistically, I began two large-scale projects and exhibited another during the year. Fontenelle was not begun until later in the year but has become somewhat of an obsession for me since then. This series marks several changes from what I have been working with since my first serious work in 2006. I'm not working via a road trip, instead spending many hours simply walking through Nebraska's Fontenelle Forest. This lends a very intimate feel to the work, a documentation of these walks and the details of a quite small piece of this world. The photographs are also black and white, something I haven't done since my time at school. I have wanted to work in black and white again for quite some time but had not found the right project until now. Fontenelle should be finished by the summer.

from the Platte River series

2012 also marked the (early, early) beginnings of a study of the Platte River from its beginnings in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming to its confluence with the Missouri River near Plattsmouth, Nebraska. I have been researching this project every now and then since 2009 but did not set out to start on it until July of this year. It's still too early to see what direction this work will ultimately take or how long it will be until I see fit to call it finished.

The Magic City at Hot Shops

In May, I exhibited The Magic City at the Hot Shops Art Center in Omaha along with the work of William Hess. While I love the images from the series, I am still a bit unsure about the quality of the prints that were created from the film scans. That aside, the photographs looked quite good together on display and I received many compliments over the course of the month. To anyone who visited the Hot Shops and is reading this entry: Thank you so very much for your support.

2013 begins, much as 2012, with a series of thirteen photographs taken on New Year's Day. One of these images leads this blog entry. The others will be posted to my Flickr page over the next two weeks. As I did last year, I will be posting an image to Flickr every weekday. This has proven to be great motivation to get out and shoot as much possible, a requirement if I want to publish 250 or so good (or better) images over the course of a year.

I will do my best to update this blog a little more regularly with what's going on. I also regret that the ninety-three book has not yet seen the light of day. At some point, I lost the files I had made for the test printing of the book and life has kept me from getting back to it. I will do my best to remedy this delay soon.

Here's to another year of growth and discoveries. Let's make the most of it.

A walk in the woods

I spent a few hours on a chilly Saturday morning walking a few trails in the Fontenelle Forest just south of Omaha. This morning followed the first overnight freeze of the year. Despite this, I was determined to get out and enjoy the fresh fall air while I explored an area I've been meaning to spend some time in for the past couple of years.

Nature photography is a lot different than most of what I've been doing for the past few years. It requires a different eye and quite a bit more patience. I've also found that I'm incredibly unskillful with a tripod, especially on the uneven terrain of the forest floor. No matter. I plan on making a habit of it in the coming months as winter begins to set in. It will be a nice change of pace and get me a bit out of my usual photographic routine.

All told, it was a gorgeous morning full of that crisp fall light that I love so much. I felt quite alive alone among the trees and the sounds of wildlife scurrying away. Life makes more sense out there, away from my everyday world, I think.

Fall is here

I took the opportunity of an extra day off this week to spend a Monday afternoon wandering a small swath of east-central Iowa that I had yet to visit. Nothing too much to speak of, just a great day with some good photographs and a little chill to the air. The leaves are beginning to change and so is the light. There's a crispness to Fall that I miss during the rest of the year.

The photograph above was taken in the town of Templeton, Iowa.


Also visited: Troublesome Creek, Brayton, Exira, Hamlin, Audubon, Gray, Dedham, Coon Rapids, Bayard, Bagley, Jamaica, Yale, Panora, Guthrie Center, Montieth, Linden, Redfield and Dexter, Iowa.

Rain, rain, go away

Downtown Hannibal, Missouri

It's just my luck. After a summer-long record drought in Nebraska, I head out on the road for a few days to take photographs and it won't stop raining. It wasn't until I was driving back to Omaha that the sun decided to come out for an extended period of time. 

Cloudy weather is something I've learned to deal with (and even embrace) photographically and rain is usually little more than a minor annoyance that makes things a little more difficult. The rain on Sunday, however, was about as obnoxious as weather can possibly be.

At times, it would cease and I'd get out of the car to walk around. Then, as soon as I'd get a distance away from the car, there would be an absolute downpour. This went on for most of Sunday afternoon, all the way from Hannibal to Keokuk, Iowa. After crossing the Mississippi to Illinois, the clouds welcomed me with a deluge of rain of which I've only seen once or twice in my life. State Highway 96 was unable to cope with the excessive amount of rain water and its edges became deep pools that lurched the car sideways. I pulled off of the highway not once, but three times, as the rain let up momentarily before resuming the downpour just a minute or two later. For reference, this was my view of the Mississippi River through my windshield at a roadside turnoff near Nauvoo:

The rain ultimately didn't let up for good until I had reached my destination in Burlington, Iowa. I was ready to admit defeat and seek refuge in a hotel room before heading home today. Instead, I looped back around through Fort Madison and took a couple of very good photographs before calling it quits. It ended up definitely being worth the second effort.

Today was another story. I did a little exploring but chose to start the long trip home without much to show for the day. It's as if I was creatively exhausted and ready for a break after a few days of constant image searching. And now it's time to get back to the reality of a full time job and classes. Such is life, right?

Also visited Sunday: La Grange, Canton and Alexandria, Missouri. Quincy, Hamilton, Niota, Dallas City, Lomax, Carman and Gulfport, Illinois.

Also visited Monday: Gladstone, Oquawka, Keithsburg and New Boston, Illinois. Muscatine, Nichols and Lone Tree, Iowa.

Paris, Florida and Louisiana

Sumner, Missouri

I visited all of these places in one afternoon. Of course, all of them were towns in northeastern Missouri. Mexico wasn't too far away, either.

Paris is a nice, yet fairly nondescript, small town with a charming little main street. Nearly non-existent Florida is the birthplace of Mark Twain and finds itself surrounded by a large man-made lake that bears his name. I got my first sight of the Mississippi River while walking up and down the hills in downtown Louisiana. It's exactly what a person would expect an old river town to be, equal parts charming and industrial. The old, narrow river bridge on US Highway 54 is fantastic.

The photograph above is of Maxie, the "world's largest goose," in a tiny, tiny town of about 200 off the beaten path called Sumner. Most of Sumner has definitely seen better days; More than half of the town's main street is abandoned and dilapidated.

I'm in Hannibal for the night and will be exploring tomorrow morning. Then I'll be heading north towards Keokuk and more river towns in Illinois and Iowa.


Also visited: Avalon, Forker, Salisbury, Moberly, Madison, Victor, Perry, Ashburn and New London, Missouri. Atlas, Illinois.